After 5 minutes of looking, glassing and listening we decide to move on. As we drive we spook up several groups of grouse once again but this time we let them go for another day. We only had one thing we were after now and it had just slipped through our fingers. About 3 more km down the road past our bull encounter a small jeep with 2 well seasoned gentlemen were out covered in blood and shoulder deep into a bull of their own. Those were the shots we heard.... They were driving through an older block and spotted the young bull 10 yards inside the trees, the guy hoped out and after putting one through the lungs the moose decided to make things super easy and walk onto the road and expire. We offered our help but the 82 and 80 year old duo said, "no thanks, we have our party coming with the trailer." After a quick chat and congratulations to the guys we moved on definitely impressed that they were still out in their 80s and getting it done! It wasn't until 4 hours later that we saw the trailer with the whole moose loaded on it driving by and off to their camp at another nearby lake. As 1:00 came upon us I said, this is when we should see deer moving, wasn't it 1:30 we got the buck yesterday..?
Not 10 minutes after I spoke I see a nice little buck standing 50 yards in an open side road. Jimmy grabbed his rifle looked it over closely for a good 30 seconds and.......
Let it live to grow bigger. It would have been an easy shot but we had already taken one smaller buck and moose was what we were now after. For the rest of the day we walked, glassed and called and didn't see a thing.
Back at camp we went over the day's events. The close call with the bull, the small buck and the bull the other party got on the road. We knew animals were moving and hopefully day 3 would bring us our bull.
Day 3: morning- again nothing, not even a grouse on the road...what was going on. It wasn't until 11 am when we saw our first grouse that day, we again sat, glassed and hiked. At noon we decided to get a better view of where the bull was feeding night one. We hiked into the block and found the closest shooting ridge that may have given me a 400 yard shit if the moose was where we saw it back on night one. As we hiked I suddenly catch a glimpse of a black object moving away from us. At first I thought it was a moose, then a bear, then we see a oddly light tan/dry grass coloured object move over a blow down spruce and disappear into a nearby plantation. What the heck was that?? This is when we came across this:
Bear den https://imgur.com/a/7a9nCEn
Clearly a freshly dug out den. But I saw a black object and then the tan....weird we thought. We continued on with the scouting, coming up with a plan for the evening set up.
5 hours later we returned, myself perched up on the ridge and Jimmy back down lower. As I start glassing I notice a beautiful super light tan bear with a second pure black bear close behind it making its way through the block. I watch the 2 bears for a while when suddenly I see a larger dark bodied object in the distant tree line. I call jimmy on the radio and whisper bull. He responds with , no bear. I am puzzled as I am sure it was a moose I saw. Darkness was again coming in fast and again from where I was sitting there was a slight breeze blowing right towards where I spotted the , what I thought was a moose. I pulled out and headed back to the truck. As dark approached shortly after, jimmy made it back and gave me his story of the black bear looking at him, disappearing and reappearing 50 yards away, then disappearing again and reappearing again a little closer. We were pretty sure it was just trying to figure out what jimmy was but still a little unnerving . On-top of that jimmy didn't realize there were 2 bears down where he was. He never did see the light coloured one. As day 3 passed we were now thinking more about the close call the day before. Would another chance present itself. Back to camp, fire, dinner, beers and sleep .
Day 4: woke up early as usual with coffee and a quick bite to eat. We decided to drive that morning and go to our 'moose block' closer to 8. As we drove, every town stump and burnt tree resembled moose...still nothing was to be seen. At 8:05 we traced back and got to out glassing ridge. I walked out, glasses up and immediately said 'BULL'. I look at jimmy and his binos we're up staring in the same direction I just was. 'Good Bull' came out of his mouth as we both walked briskly to the truck to grab our packs. Now the Bull was ranged from where we glasses it at 840 yards. It didn't know we were there and we knew we had a little time. We looked over the terrain and decided on the best route to get to a reasonable shooting distance (for me with a perfect rest 500 yards)...yes it's far but with practice it is very makeable.... We get to the first ridge, 740... Get to the next ridge , 660. We look around a make out way to the last rise that we can get to for an angled open shot. At this point my heart is beating as I know this may be my only opportunity. 480 yards. I double check with my range finder, 493..ok breath and calm down .....I get my bipods up, pack off and under the stock. Laying down on my belly I have my scope set at 500 and crosshairs towards the back of the front shoulder. I take another minute to breath and calm down. The moose is standing perfectly broadside, finger on the trigger....BANG, "Hit", jimmy says. I quickly reload and see the bull walk behind some small standing pine. He is now not moving and I turn and ask jimmy, " your sure it was a hit" . Yes he replies. We turn back and the moose is gone.
We start glassing and see a cow and 2 calves appear 75 yard stop the right of where the bull was standing in the pines. There is a slight opening where they were but with standing Aspen if the bull appeared there I couldn't get a shot off. We spot another rise about 150 yards away that would work. We quickly and calmly make our way over. The entire time thinking, I missed, they are going to be gone.
As we reach the next rise and peek over we quickly spot th
bull standing again broadside 10 yards away from the other 3 moose. Again I get set up and range him...500..? What the first spot was 500. This should be at least 100 yards closer...jimmy confirms, 500. I triple check..yep it's right. The bull is again standing as the cow and calf feed slowly, I get set up, calm my breathing and slowly squeeze the trigger again. The bull doesn't move. I reload and get him back in my scope, suddenly he takes one step forward, wobbles , another step, sways side to side and down. We can see his head laying flat on the ground. The cow and calves walk up to him and stand at his side for a couple minutes the slowly walk off. I keep my scope right on him looking for movement and nothing.
A sense of astonishment falls over me. Did that really just happen? We quickly snap a picture of the spot I shot from, give a quick high five and start the nervous walk to where the moose should be laying. https://imgur.com/a/IhYaDD7
As we approach the downed moose it becomes apparently clear he was never getting up. The shit from the 300 WSM with 168 nosler e-tips under rl19 powder did the job. We found him laying in a perfect pose
As he lay https://imgur.com/a/vMFrKNd
After tagging him out, filling out the necessary Leh sheet and double checking all that we again high five, snap a couple pics and realize that now the work begins. Funny, the bear den found the day before is literally 20 yards away. You can see it in the pics in post 1 where I am standing behind the moose and there is a small dirt mound behind its nose. I guess the moose aren't really scared off by bears..?
We get the beast flipped onto his back and legs tied back. I start the gutting job while jimmy looks for an easy route to pack it out. Unbelievably, it goes way to well. We find an old ranchers road that leads right to where the moose is laying. The only hiccup was chainsawing out 60 or so dead blowdown pine and Aspen. 2.5 hours after the shot we have the bull loaded in quarters in the truck and are back off to camp.
In the truck we look at the maps and GPS data. We were still wondering how both shots could be from the same distance...they weren't. The first shot was at 606 yards.....the rangefinder was picking up branches at 490... Both his and mine read the same thing. The first shot hit low and went through the mooses front right knee. The second shit was indeed from 500 and took out both lung turning them to soup. I never would have thought that the rangefinder would pick up such a small twig. Every hunt we learn something... After we got back to camp we set up another game pole and got the moose hung up, skinned, and cleaned. There were many celebratory beers with neighboring hunters that night. As the days were reaching 15-19 degrees, we decided to pack up the next morning and head back to the island and get the meat hung up in a cooler. By 9:30 pm the next day we were at the butcher with the moose hanging. On the trip out from camp not 5 km away we spotted this guy and his girl hanging out in a classic moose swamp picture! https://imgur.com/a/Bdp7gHT
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